Aren't detours wonderful? I look at them as
life's way of showing me something that I wouldn't have
seen otherwise. They're me being guided or led (or I
suppose even forced) to go in a direction or on a road
that I would have chosen to avoid had I been able to do
so. Some of the most amazing things that I've ever
seen have been on detours--and I don't just mean being
redirected while driving my car.

Sometimes life pushes us into little detours,
too-sometimes we find ourselves going down roads that we
never expected to travel because a job ended or an
opportunity fell through or another opportunity arose that
we never could have imagined. Sometimes when we
think we have our route all figured out, boom!--life
throws us a curve ball and we end up doing something
completely different, going somewhere completely
unforeseen. And when that happens, life will still
offer us wonderful scenery--even if it isn't the scenery
we had planned on seeing.

Some people find detours to be frustrating or annoying or
even awful. And when they're in the state of mind
that makes them see things that way, their eyes aren't
necessarily open to the beauty of their new route--because
they're focused on where they wish they were instead of
where they are. Perhaps they're worrying about the
detour taking twenty minutes more than they had planned
on, or they're worried about not finding their way back to
their original route. Or perhaps they're just not
open to new and different things, preferring instead the
"safety" of what they knew and what they had
planned on.

But in a detour is a gift--a chance to see something
that's new and different and unplanned--almost like forced
spontaneity (a great oxymoron, no?). And if we
follow that detour with a closed mind because our attitude
is negative, we most certainly won't get anything out of
it. But if we keep our minds and hearts open, we may
find in each detour that we take something that will help
us to come closer to being the people we were meant to be.

Questions to
consider:

What makes us think that the path we've chosen--be it a
road when we're traveling or a career or course of
study--is necessarily the best one for us?

Why do we think of detours with negative
connotations? Are detours necessarily negative?

What does it take for us to enjoy the scenery on any road
we travel? How much of our enjoyment is due to our
attitude?

For further thought:

We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do
is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. . .
I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me
and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you. . .
we are in charge of our attitudes.

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